Finding Nemo | DJcube

Fish Are Friends, Not Food

NA release: 12th May 2003
EU release: 26th September 2003
JP release: 6th December 2003
Developer: Traveller’s Tales
Publisher: THQ (NA/EU), Yuke’s (JP)
NGC Magazine Score: 65%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

It’s been a while since I played a game that was bad in a hilarious way. Finding Nemo is one of my favourite films so there was probably a decent chance that someone would have bought me this when I was younger, and if that had happened, I probably wouldn’t be looking back upon it fondly, as it fails spectacularly as a game for children.

Now, the game actually looks quite nice, with some lovely looking backgrounds and sights, although it does not capture the colour of the film. Where it drops the ball is with the voice acting, as they didn’t get the cast of the film, and I feel like the voice cast for the game were never shown any footage, either, as they’re a very different interpretation. Whoever directed it must have thought that Finding Nemo was some kind of cowboy film, as Marlin is half putting on a cowboy voice and Dory is full on cowgirl. The voice actors are talented – Dory is voiced by Commander Shepard – but the result is entertainingly bad and is a joy to listen to. Even better, the game uses clips from the film with the proper voice acting so you can tell the difference even more. Except for Bruce the Shark, for some reason, his iconic menacing voice was also replaced in the film clips, so instead he is a cheerful Australian.

Finding Nemo handles the difficulty of dealing with moving in a 3D space by simply avoiding it at all costs. At no point can you just swim around, as most of the game is a 2D platformer. Now, for a kids game, this makes sense, as it makes the game simple to control, but this is countered by the game’s difficulty. Finding Nemo is brutal, utterly brutal. In most levels, enemies and obstacles will kill you in one hit. To make matters worse, the camera is far too zoomed in and you move at a speed (and take time to stop) that you’ll hit something before you can react. Oh top of this, the obstacles are jets, tentacles and bubbles with poorly defined edges that will end up with you thinking you missed it but still dying. If it wasn’t for save states, I would not be able to get past some levels, and it’s still very difficult using those.

Then there are puzzles that are both challenging and mind numbing at the same time. Mainly sliding puzzles. They’re annoying enough normally, but Finding Nemo knocks it up a notch by having some puzzles where you’re not sure what the end result should even look like. It’s another example as to where the game seems to be made to stumble every audience.

Things get worse in the “3D” segments. In these you’re automatically moving away (or towards) the camera, with the same insane obstacles being thrown at you. This time, though, it’s extremely difficult to work out your position relative to everything else, which is yet another hurdle. Invisible currents will also push you around and throw off your aim. Even aiming for the large rings you have to go through is unreliable. So this game is very difficult to complete normally, but there are also additional objectives which remind me of A Bug’s Life: swim through all the rings (miss one and start the level again), find coloured balls and drag them to the right spot, kill all enemies and a few level-specific ones. You reward is being able to watch the film clips you’ve already seen.

Somehow, Finding Nemo got decent reviews when it originally released, but this is just a mess of absurd difficulty spikes, often only hard due to bad design. What’s amusing is that some of the actual chases – such as Bruce or the anglerfish – are the easiest parts of the game. It’s just so inconsistent, but at least the voices will keep you laughing.

Poor

The other contributing factor is the painful loading times. They’re horrible. They’re not even in the same league as EA’s laborious waiting times – they’re in a whole new ‘put-the-kettle-on-and-stir-up-a-Cup-A-Soup-storm’ league of tedium. It’s a shame because progress though the game is otherwise fluid and pleasingly swift, again, lending itself perfectly to the younger gamer with a less forgivable attention span.
Geraint Evans, NGC Magazine #86

Remake or remaster?

Nothing for this.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to buy Finding Nemo.